Sure, the man's had a bad run of things. When Brian de Palma directed Snake Eyes, a corker of a plot that went nowhere, it seemed like a fluke. When he did Femme Fatale, that ludicrous sapphic French diamond heist flick, it could be written off as just an idiosyncratic minor joke by a former Hollywood heavyweight in self-imposed Euro-exile -- something to keep him occupied until he went back to the big leagues. Well, that moment of return finally arrived in the form of the long-gestating adaptation of James Ellroy's 1987 novel The Black Dahlia, a mystery about the infamous 1947 Elizabeth Short murder which seemed purpose-built for de Palma's needs. Ellroy's fever dream of a novel has everything that the famously self-referential director could utilize: doppelgangers (male and female), seedy urban underbelly, and psychosexual perversities galore. Given the limp, campy joke of a film that resulted, however, it seems time to stop making excuses for the man -- Brian de Palma has become one very bad director.

The generally limp script by Josh Friedman starts off smartly, setting us up for the bruising friendship between the stars, a couple of L.A. cops who also happen to be boxers and get paired up for a publicity-machine fight that touts them as "Mr. Fire and Mr. Ice." Ice is "Bucky" Bleichart (Josh Hartnett), a cool and low-key guy charitably described as a loser who gets his shot at a good chunk of change as well as reassignment to the LAPD's hotshot Warrants department for agreeing to the fight. Fire is Lee Blanchard (Aaron Eckhart), one of those bigger-than-life cops who cuts corners with aplomb and seems happy enough to bring Bucky on as his partner after knocking his teeth out (literally) in the ring. Further binding the two men together, besides work and friendship, is Kay Lake (Scarlett Johansson), the sultry blonde dame on Lee's arm who takes a shine to Bleichart that doesn't seem to be entirely platonic.

When exactly we became obsessed with diarrhea and premature ejaculation can never really be pinpointed, but Peter and Bobby Farrelly are prime suspects. He was more than happy to shovel the laughs that come from every humiliation, every bodily function and every unnatural act in the book, and why the hell not? We loved it in the '90s and we love it even more today. More than ever, we have Dumb & Dumber to blame for being a spark that ignited a flaming fart of laughter.

As a debut, it did exactly what it needed to do: It announced the director's intentions in film. The Farrelly brothers wanted inspired vulgarity, laughs mixed equally with disgust. And for awhile there, they had it; Dumb & Dumber, Kingpin, and There's Something About Mary were pioneering efforts in the history of gross-out cinema. Lately, however, the Farrelly Brothers have become tame and inoffensive, bothering themselves with misguided causes (Shallow Hal) and dull remakes (Fever Pitch). Peter, Bobby, we need you back, and in a hurry.

As it is, Ray's (Robert Patrick) video store isn't doing so hot (maybe locating it in the desert isn't the best idea...), but when he stops to pick up a hitchhiking Harley (Jennifer Esposito) -- fresh out of prison -- his life gets even crazier. Harley, it seems, has a couple million illicit dollars stashed in a safe deposit box, and maybe she'll take Ray along to get it out, promising him half. But what's the story with Colm Meaney's mobster on her trail? And Harley's old partner -- where'd he go?

While there's a fair amount of confusion in Backflash (a title which really means nothing but which I guess someone thought sounded cool), the twists are fairly garden variety and can be spotted coming from a mile away. Ray is a patsy in this whole thing? Well of course he is, just as sure as he'll find a way out of it. Or is Ray really running the show?

What the hell is talented mega-hottie Saffron Burrows doing in a Burt Reynolds movie? Well, trying to make you forget Burt Reynolds is in the movie, for starters. When the Brit siren is onscreen, she almost makes you forget the derivative plot ("I'll pay you $10,000 to (try to) sleep with my wife!" Trouble ensues.). Alas, Saffron, that bad southern accent has got to go.

The art gallery world gets a decent comedic prod in this new film by writer/director brothers P.J. and Joel Posner. Set amongst the spoiled and the starving in New York, The Next Big Thing pits artistic intelligence against a pleasantly simple love story, all centering around independent favorite Chris Eigeman (The Last Days of Disco).

Eigeman is Gus, who starts out the film having the worst possible day. On his way to an important meeting, battered portfolio in hand, his wallet is swiped by a swindler escaping from subway havoc. The interview goes poorly with gallery owner Arthur Pomposello (an unrecognizable Farley Granger, of beloved Hitchcock fame) because Gus just doesn't "catch you." His shading shows talent and his composition is pleasant to look at, but he doesn't display the normal despondence and stereotypical artistic pain seen in his peers.

The Coen brothers went all Clockwork Orangey in their most violent but least ironic picture, Miller's Crossing. It's a relatively run of the mill gangster thriller, though oddly the film has found an intensely loyal audience. (Many even consider it to be the best of the Coens' films.) The story follows a Prohibition era crime boss's aide (Gabriel Byrne), who finds himself trying to keep the peace between his boss and a warring faction. He loves his boss's gal, too.

Drowning in every workaholic- single- father- gets- his- priorities- straight cliché you could possibly imagine (and then some), "Jersey Girl" is so insultingly trite and treacly it actually features self-centered, single-dad widower Ben Affleck not only realizing (at the last moment) that his daughter's school talent show is more important than a job interview, but actually dashing back to the 'burbs from Manhattan to join her on stage for a song.

Granted, the duet -- which manages to be insipidly saccharine and hokey despite being a murderous number from "Sweeney Todd" -- is the performance that father and daughter had planned all along before his ego got in the way. But the very fact that it never even crosses Affleck's mind to ask about rescheduling his interview lays bare how blindly enamored writer-director Kevin Smith was with the hackneyed notion of this false dilemma.

For all the post-"Gigli" murmur about this being the another possible bomb co-starring former fiancés Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez, "Jersey Girl" is actually quite romantic, amusing and well-acted up to the point when Lopez, as Affleck's beloved wife, dies in childbirth, providing the timber-souled actor a brief moment in which to show unexpected depth as he collapses in a weeping heap in the hospital hallway.